St. Katharina

The church grew in two stages over the centuries. The chancel tower and the sacristy date from around 1300 and still show their Gothic character. The nave – the space where the congregation sits – was built in 1799, joining a much later section to a medieval core. Heritage protection covers not only the building itself but explicitly also the historic furnishings inside and the wall enclosing the churchyard.

St. Katharina is a hall church (Saalkirche): the interior is a single undivided room with no side aisles and no rows of columns breaking it up – the typical layout of smaller village churches. Above it sits a half-hipped roof, where the gable ends do not rise vertically to the ridge but are angled back in their upper section, so the roof surface folds over the gable.

The chancel tower is a distinctive feature: instead of standing over the entrance as usual, the tower rises above the chancel, the altar area at the far end of the church. It carries a pyramid roof – four evenly pitched triangular faces meeting at a point. The walls are rendered, with surrounds of dressed natural stone (ashlar) at the corners and around windows and doors, setting them off against the smooth render.